Letters to the Editor 09-16-13

Monday

Sep 16, 2013 at 4:07 AMSep 16, 2013 at 4:09 AM

Reality check

Could Tom Jahnke ("Presumption of innocence," Letters, Sept. 11) explain exactly how President Obama "let" four Americans die in Benghazi? What could he have done to prevent these deaths that wasn't done? Why is the right so obsessed with the Benghazi four? How are they different from all the other brave Americans who have died in diplomatic service to their country? Where is similar concern shown by the right for the thousands of Americans George W. Bush "let" die in the wars he lied to the world to start?

Bush had seven years to catch Osama bin Laden and never did, bin Laden was caught and killed on President Obama's watch, so why is the right complaining that the many culprits of the Benghazi attack haven't yet been caught after only a year?

How is the IRS "riding roughshod" over civil liberties by investigating conservative and liberal groups that ask for tax exempt status? That is their job. Are we just supposed to give tax exemptions to every group that asks for one?

What is the NSA doing under Obama that it did not do under Bush?

The facts have been pointed out to those who continue to parrot these same three lies they've been told, but clearly conservatives refuse to see the facts, especially if they run counter to their worldview. They're the ones divorced from reality.

Donna PelonisHesperia

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Richard Gift obviously got the information he repeats in his Aug. 30 letter ("Still waiting") from Fox News, especially the idea that if Fox reports one thing and everybody else reports something different then it must be because everyone else has a "liberal agenda," because it couldn't be that Fox is driven by a conservative agenda and has become little more than the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.

Fox News seems to be the only ones claiming that there are "survivors" from Benghazi who are being kept from talking to reporters. No one has ever provided credible evidence to link President Obama to the Benghazi, IRS or NSA "scandals" Fox has promoted either.

Fox is notorious for editing video and sound to create misleading and outright false stories, like the time they showed video from a protest in Florida and claimed it was from a protest in Wisconsin, the give away being the palm trees in the background. They are also known for outright lying to their viewers, as Bill O'Reilly did just last week when he claimed that no Republicans were invited to the 50th anniversary celebration of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech when, in fact, both President Bushes were invited (they both declined for health reasons) as was every member of Congress, both Democrat and Republican. Such prevarications are staples of Fox News.

The truth is that while Fox does have the highest ratings in cable news, which isn't saying that much (the network news programs have much higher ratings than Fox), their ratings overall are on the decline, especially with those between 25 and 54, the audience most coveted by advertisers, and MSNBC crushes Fox in that demographic. Fox's audience averages about 65 years of age and the ratings for their two biggest stars, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, are dropping as more and more people recognize their claim of being "fair and balanced" is just another Fox News lie.

David E. Savage Jr.Hesperia

Our overflowing prisons

An unpopular Republican governor promoted "three strikes" in 1994, but Attorney General Gil Garrcetti — a Democrat — heavily prosecuted the law. Since Proposition 184's passage, its effects have impacted the penal system at every level. With judicial flexibility compromised, we are now suffering the over-crowding situation we have today.

"Three strikes" has inadvertently given us one of the newest, most powerful unions in the state, and has contributed to the debacle over public pensions and state services. It is a mess.

This over-crowding mandate handed down by the federal court is now shredding the single-minded lunacy that is our current crop of legislators. And I wonder why we keep these idiots in office.

Gerald IraPinon Hills

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Send letters to swilliams@vvdailypress.com.

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